Nikolay Gusev
is eternal
is strong
is clever
Nikolay Gusev is a musician.

I saw him puzzled just once, on April the 8th,
When I told him that the dancers rehearse night & day.
They know the duration of each track (4 min 26 sec, for example)
And the tempo (metronome at 120 or 86)
But no one listened to the songs. I forbade them.

“They know you, Kolya, they know the AVIA and they trust me. They will hear your music for the first time during the show.”
And so they did, and performed wonderfully!
My experiment was a success.
Danke,
Anton

Excuse me for an extremely plain depiction of the complicated theory of Agoraphobia. The subject is definitely worth a deeper contemplation. Maybe I’ll come back to it soon at some of our workshops.

From a very young age a human requires some physical limit of the world.

Something that reminds us of the prenatal closeness. Such space can be a cave, a tree hollow, a city appartment, a sleeping bag… even a canvas tent would be placed next to a tree if possible, not because of the rain or wind. It just seems to give some kind of protection.

Skipping all eight volumes of a detailed commentary on the subject I’d rather leap right to the conclusion: everyone is affected by Agoraphobia, at least with its minimal symptoms. And this is what DEREVO is quite interested for.

In case of the Terschelling island, measuring 20 by 4 km, there’s an opportunity to try out something what hardly fits the indoor training.

For instance that can be practices connected with an extended influence range of dancers on their audience, as well as some techniques of „wide-shot-like focusing of eyes“ or dynamically adjusting the dance according to the distance to a partner or an instant transition to the dance action in front of the audience and many more.

It is stated in DEREVO’s Manifest „the sky begins right from the ground“, well it’s easier said…

Once on a summer day at the Elbe, as merry and damp as I was, I shouted to Slava Guyvoronsky „Why don’t you bath?“. „I wasn’t invited“ he replied.

22 years ago this Island made a new hardly noticeable companion to world re-knowned DEREVO theatre company.

Right there in the dunes, under the sky, on the endless sands, in the roaring wind and surf, there the unique principles of DEREVO’s dance have been elaborated. And they mean the mastering of huge spaces, laconic moves, purity of senses, precision in colours of the costumes and props, live music of nature…

In June the WEISSE FESTUNG (WHITE FORTRESS) happened at the beautiful pond in the historical city centre in Dresden. After the last year’s success they asked us to repeat the open-air action. It was far too easy to persuade us in this case.

We know powerful places by experience.
But this place is powerful to such an extent that one really risks losing his head.
I’ve lost my voice for an hour; in the dressing room (actually a beer cellar) a mirror has broken. Wind has lifted the tent over the mixing console and put it five meters away. Daniel Williams said it was good so, and that the other spot will be better acoustically…
First rehearsal at the Albrechtsburg Castle in Meissen.
The Execution of Harlequin scene.
Tanya plays an executioner and lifts an axe…
Suddenly a horrible scream and two falcons are falling from the sky.
Dodging and moaning.
It’s scary.
All the tourists in the yard just run away.
Steep curve right above the ground and they’re in the sky again…
Singing and crying.
Their nestling has fallen and smashed.
The nest was at the very top of the church.
“Yes, - the castle’s manager said, - at the very top. They could really build the nest much lower.”
Then he said to us, right in the face: “The place plays with you..”
The nestling has been buried then.
We stopped the rehearsal and went to see the Goat, who guards the House of the Lonely Knight.

This is a first video from the future film project about DEREVO Backstage.

Here we rehearse the open-air project “The Fight Of The Harlekin With His Own Shadow In Search Of The Barrel of Wine And The Eternal Life” to be performed on 27 June and 9 - 11 July 2010 in the courtyard of the late gothic castle Albrechtsburg in Meissen, Germany.

We are working on the WHITE FORTRESS project again. At the beautiful pond in the historical city centre in Dresden. After the last year’s success they asked us to repeat the open-air action. It was far too easy to persuade us in this case.

Usually the work on a show is a process closed for the public. But the weather and the mood are too good to keep anything secret.

In the next days we will share some impressions with you here.

On and In the Water:

Anton Adasinsky

Lena Yarovaya

Pavel Semchenko (AKHE)

Andrey Sizintsev (AKHE)

Alisa Oleynik

Maxim Kuznetsov

Lidiya Makeeva

Lidiya Kopina

Tatyana Belousova

Valentin Tzin

Alexey Lanskoy

Nastya Ponomareva

The crew

Daniel Williams: Sound

Steffen Köhler: Technical direction

Falk Dittrich: Light

Igor Fomin: Light for floating objects

Isolde Matkey: Management

and many assistants: everything that wouldn’t be possible without them